Posted by aXE on October 13, 2011 at 13:15:42:
In Reply to: Jill Urchak has been let go from 101.1 FM News posted by The Magic Ax on October 13, 2011 at 03:37:48:
Despite public pronouncements that ranged from confident to arrogant since Merlin Media launched a female-targeted lifestyle news format on WWWN-FM (101.1), the
company’s chief executive officer now admits that mistakes were made in the approach and execution.
On Wednesday, Michaels met separately with the news and sales staffs of FM News 101.1 to explain where the strategy had gone wrong and outline a major course
correction for the station. For more than an hour, Michaels reassured news staffers who’ve been buffeted by harsh criticism, monumental technical problems,
abysmal ratings, and the sudden firing of at least two anchor/reporters — Dave Williams and Jill Urchak — since the launch July 31.
“Randy made it clear that the basic premise [of the format] isn’t wrong, but that a number of things had to be corrected based on what we’ve been hearing, and the
feedback we’ve been getting from the audience,” a source who was at the meeting said. One of the biggest mistakes at the outset was tailoring the format too
narrowly to women — or at least the assumption of what women wanted to hear on an FM news station, as conceived by Merlin Media’s chief operating officer, Walter
Sabo.